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Inaccuracy in BBC’s Fatah profile exposed

A political party which solicited votes in an upcoming election anywhere in the world by boasting that it had murdered thousands of people would no doubt make BBC headlines. Anywhere in the world, that is, except for Ramallah.

“Fatah yesterday posted a list of Fatah’s achievements on behalf of Palestinians. Significantly, Fatah did not cite even one peace-seeking or peace-promoting achievement, but only listed Fatah acts of violence and terror. Fatah even boasted that its attacks have killed 11,000 Israelis. While Fatah and the PLO have been killing Israelis since 1965, this number is a gross exaggeration.

One of the acts it bragged about was being the “first Palestinian faction to reach the [Israeli] nuclear reactor.” This is a reference to Fatah’s bus hijacking and murder of three Israeli civilians on their way to work at the Dimona nuclear plant in 1988.”

“The current Fatah post is likely linked to the upcoming Palestinian municipal elections, set for October 8, in which Fatah and Hamas are expected to contest seats in most Palestinian municipalities. In many places in the West Bank, Hamas members will be running without openly identifying with the movement, which has been suppressed by PA forces in areas under its control.”

“Under Arafat’s leadership, the group originally promoted an armed struggle against Israel to create a Palestinian state. But it later recognised Israel’s right to exist, and its leaders have led Palestinian peace talks aimed at reaching a two-state solution.”

And:

“With international pressure mounting, Fatah – though notably not the al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades – signed a declaration rejecting attacks on civilians in Israel and committing themselves to peace and co-existence.”

A political party which tries to boost its credentials among the electorate by boasting about murdering civilians has obviously not ‘rejected’ attacks on Israeli civilians or ‘committed’ itself to “peace and co-existence”. However, just as the BBC is unlikely to amend those clearly unrealistic statements in its Fatah profile, it is also unlikely to report a story which contradicts its adopted narrative.

The Fatah logo is a map of “Palestine” that includes of all of the land “from the river to the sea” including all of Israel within its borders and implicitly excluding Israel as an independent state as part of a two state solution. That is also consistent with how Fatah presents itself to the Arabs of the West Bank and Gaza Strip as translated by Palestinian Media Watch (http://www.palwatch.org/).